Reconciled - The Call (1986)
Michael Been and The Call never got their due. They were a fantastic band with a bunch of great songs. But they weren’t jangly enough, noisy enough, apocalyptic enough, or party-oriented enough to fit into any of the big underground movements of the time. One band could get away with singing earnest songs about spirituality, but that band didn’t create much space around them. Their arrangements were often conventional radio rock stuff, which obscured what a startlingly original songwriter Been was.
This is my favorite of their albums, solid all the way through.
Been’s soulful voice soars and growls. 80s-vintage keyboards weave in and out of excellent metronomic rhyhtms, and the lyrics never stop offering surprises and insights.
Been passed on in 2010, but his son fronts the equally interesting (and equally stardom-averse) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Tracks I Liked
I Still Believe - 1. yes it’s the original of the iconic song from Lost Boys. 2. Look, I know I’m not the only one who had an imaginary Pro Wrestling career when they were 12. I did, and this was my intro music.
The Morning - “I’m divided / But I’ve decided / It’s my nature” A song I didn’t appreciate when i was a kid but one that I feel in my gut now.
Oklahoma - Maybe just my own interepretation, but I see this as using a tornado as a metaphor for facing the ineluctable forces of the world around us
